Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

Though Fall Out Boy has left us for a while, thought I would share this shot of Midii desks side by side new school/old school can live in harmony! Say hey to Kyle, FOB's engineer.

Roadies come in a wide variety of species. If you look carefully you may be able to spot one of the rare Beamhugger roadies napping in his natural habitat.

Meet Cadaver (Captain Jack Spare-Ocho), Sweatshop (Ochito), J-Con ( Ocho-Guesto), Satan (Ocho Diablo), Doug (Double 0 Ocho)and Robert (Ocho Libre). Though at first look you may mistake them for bankers on their way to work in business suits, if you look carefully you may take notice that Sweatshop and Robert are tossing out signs of their allegiance to the Ocho. The Ocho is an elite and highly feared group of roadies that travel together on a tour bus that has a little plastic 8 in the window.

A rare glimpse inside the Ocho

One of the most wonderful aspects of touring is the unexpected. The thrill of not knowing what will happen next. And probably the pinnacle of that feeling occurs when you awake on the bus after an overnight drive to step out and look at the brand new world around you. Take a gander at this view while imagining the heart pounding thrill of stepping out into Hartford

This tour like every tour I take on a project or two and do my best to succeed. My primary project for this tour was to try and wear one of two hats everyday. Yes, this may seem daunting but with enough will power, roadies can accomplish nearly anything. What you may not know is why. Why not a baseball cap, why not a Guilligan hat or beany? Well perhaps you are not fully learned on the assets of a properly Dave Rat folded cowboy hat. If I recall correctly, I believe I purchase the mixing tigers at the same truck stop in Florida.

It's not just the Ocho, it's a way of life!

**** Sound Nerd Speak ****

Just to take the edge off the heaviness of the blog, I really try an offer some technical sound nerdery. So what today? Lets see, someone asked how audio gets off the spinning drum riser. Well, that was something that we solved in pre production as it was not thought of in the design. There is a 20 channel audio snake and ac cable that feeds through a tube dead center. Since the riser only spins 2 rotations max, the wind up is not bad. The Drum riser actually is two pieces and splits in half and rolls on the truck on a pair of set carts. Of course everything is bolted down and it stays nearly intact with just mics, snare and cymbals getting pulled each day.

Oh, here is something you may find interesting. A little more on the slotfire setup.

The theory here is to create two point sources spaces at 1/3 of a wavelength. Now typically with the wall of sub setup that is common, point sources are just plain out of the question with multi-sub setups but... by pointing them at each other we can significantly reduce the size of the sound sources and now have something we can really work with.

Now by delaying the outside pair 1/6 of a wavelength, we get a 1/6 +1/3 wavelength =1/2 wavelength cancellation on stage an we get a maximum summation angle I am guessing 30 off axis or so. Fair enough, all good works quite well, especially if you have a wall behind them but....

There is another aspect that is really interesting. The distance between the subs that face each other has is useful as well. See, we are creating a compression zone and the amount of compression also effects the way our subs sound. The closer together they are, the more front pressure we put on the cones. Typically the cones ported boxes only see back pressure from the enclosure. This front pressure has a damping effect and can be used to alter the tuning of the speaker/enclosure a bit or in other world as you get closer the sound gets tighter and father is looser. This added dynamic is yet another cool (and free) tool to add to your subwoofer toolbox.

**** End Sound Nerd Speak ****